Severe Drought Reveals Massive Ancient Monument in Ireland
As severe droughts swipe across Britain, new aerial images of a crop field in Ireland have revealed what appears to be a gigantic monument similar to Stonehenge, reports the Irish Times.
June of 2018 was one of the top five warmest Junes across the UK, according to the UK Met Office, dating back to 1910.
Aerial images taken this week from a drone reveal the presence of a circular monument 200 meters in diameter buried under a field in Ireland.
The circle is located around one kilometer from Newgrange.
A thousand years older than Stonehenge, and 500 years older than the Pyramids of Giza, Newgrange is an ancient monument that consists of approximately 200,000 tons of rock and other materials. It is 85 meters (279 ft) wide at its widest point.
It is believed that the discovered site is at least 500 years older than Newgrange, so it was most likely built at the end of the Neolithic or beginning of the Bronze Age, say experts.
Interestignly, Newgrange remained ‘lost’ during more than 4,000 years due to a decrease of the mound until it was discovered in the XVII century by people who looked construction stones and described it as a cave.
The true purpose of Newgrange remains a mystery, although experts believe it was a religious center of some sort.
The new discovery–not far from Newgrange–is hailed as ‘extremely significant’
The image of the new archeological site was snapped by historian and author Anthony Murphy.
Speaking to the Irish Times Mr. Murphy said: “the weather is absolutely critical to the discovery of this monument. I have flown a drone over the Boyne Valley regularly and have never seen this.”
“So when that crop is harvested all surface traces of this monument will vanish and we may not see this monument again for 2 or 3 decades depending on when we get another prolonged dry spell like this.”
The discovery could be the beginning of something bigger.
According to archeologists, the fact that the massive monument is located not far away from Newgrange means that we are most likely looking at a much larger ancient landscape filled with monuments.
As explained by Archaeologist Dr. Gerladine Stout:
“I believe Newgrange is just the center of a much larger sacred landscape and I think there was a whole series of facilities built for the pilgrims coming to Newgrange in prehistory.”
“Generally we believe these henge monuments were built up to 500 years after the main use of Newgrange and in a lot of cases they actually enclose the area of monuments.”
0 Comments